Scenes from a Softer Series Three
by variousflumps
Summary: A few scenes that we might have seen if Tango had remained an uplifting comedy drama and nobody had bought the milk...


**Author's note: I think this story, along with the final chapter of The Woman Next Door, might well be my last McElliot stories as I seem to have run out of ideas for these two characters, but at minimum I'll be taking an extended break from writing for McElliot. It has been a pleasure to be a part of this fandom!**

 **(And if any of you are fans of the The Good Wife and particularly Kalicia I'm posting some old fics on this site if you fancy a read.)**

* * *

They sit quietly on the bed, watching in awe as their one-day old daughter suckles at Kate's breast. She seems a little smaller than Lawrence and William ever did, although she's been given a clean bill of health and when Caroline had counted (twice) she had definitely got ten tiny fingers and ten tiny toes. Soulful brown eyes, like her mother, a slightly puzzled expression on her face as if she hasn't quite worked out where she is yet. And a voice as commanding as her other mother.

"OK, I need to pop out for a moment," Caroline says after a while.

Kate looks up at her in surprise. "What? Why?"

"I need to go and find one of the nurses, I need to…apologise, a bit, and then I'll be straight back." She gets up from the bed and tries to look as innocent as possible.

"Apologise? What for?"

"She didn't…it's not important, be five minutes."

Caroline makes a beeline for the door.

"Apologise for what?"

"She's feeding very well, you're a natural."

"Don't do that."

"Do what?"

"You know what. Spit it out, Caroline. You know I'll get it out of you eventually."

Caroline huffs out a sigh. "I thought she wasn't letting me in to see you when you were in labour and I'd come back from the loo. She wouldn't listen to reason, wouldn't let me in the sodding door! I may have raised my voice."

"Why wouldn't she let you in?"

"Because I'm not the father. I assumed."

Kate eyes her suspiciously.

"You assumed? What was the real reason?"

Caroline mumbles something inaudible.

"You'll have to speak up, your daughter's very noisy when she's eating."

"It wasn't your room," she says a bit crossly, "it wasn't your room, all right, it was somebody else's room, some other woman who I almost barged in on and she wasn't so much preventing me from seeing my wife as protecting a complete stranger from a madwoman. So I'll be five minutes. OK?"

Kate gives her a silent look that she interprets as half affection and half exasperation at her quick temper. "OK. Don't make us wait."

"I won't."

They both look down again as the baby makes a small snuffling noise and then continues to drink her fill.

"Thirsty little thing," Caroline says affectionately.

"She is."

"Back in a mo." She turns to leave.

"Caroline?"

"Mm?"

"What did you say to the nurse?"

"It wasn't anything terrible, you don't need to-"

"No, I mean…what did you say? About us? Who you were?"

There had been a moment, just a moment, at the reception desk the day before. Their daughter had decided to arrive on a particularly busy day for the maternity unit and they'd been surrounded by other couples, all straight, a sea of doting husbands and loving boyfriends. And the receptionist had taken Kate's name and then asked Caroline if she was the birthing partner and she'd said "Yes." Just "Yes." And three seconds later she'd said "And her wife, actually. Birthing partner and wife, both of those things."

The receptionist hadn't reacted, of course, apart from looking a little surprised that Caroline didn't seem to know quite who she was. But she had felt Kate's eyes on her.

"I said that my wife and future child were in that room and if she didn't let me in _immediately_ I was going to call the police and the fire brigade and the sodding prime minister and she was going to be in so much trouble she'd wish she had never laid eyes on me. Nothing that she didn't deserve. Well. If you'd actually been in the room, of course."

"Nothing too awful, then. That's a relief."

"No. Like I said."

"But you're right, an apology is probably in order."

Caroline turns again to leave.

"Caroline?"

"Mm?"

"You were going to call the fire brigade?"

She turns around again. Kate is gazing at the baby.

"Yes. I was. In the heat of the moment I was going to call the fire brigade."

"They could have put you on one of their big ladders and got you in the window."

"That's right," she says seriously. "That is exactly what I was thinking."

Kate looks up and smiles at her. "Go and say sorry to that poor nurse. And then get straight back to your wife and child."

Caroline smiles at her lovingly and does exactly as she's told.

* * *

"Josephine."

"No."

"Esther."

"No."

"Olivia."

"No."

"Esmerelda."

"No and don't be silly."

"Ermintrude?"

Kate glares at her.

"Kate the second? Kate junior? It's quite common in America I think, perhaps for boys more than girls though."

"No."

"Caroline junior?"

"Caroline, I am not spending the next forty years saying "Not you, the other one" every time I say your name. Try again."

"Why don't you have a go, I'm getting nowhere fast."

"Um…Emma?"

"No."

"Laura?"

"No."

"Jennifer?"

"Um, no, that one's not…no."

"That one's not what?"

"Suitable."

"Why?"

"Just isn't."

"Why?"

"That was…the other, my other…at university, not Hannah, but the…other one."

"Oh! Gosh. The clandestine one-night stand."

"Excuse me! It was _not_ a one-night stand, we went on at _least_ a dozen dates before we slept together and it was _two_ nights in total, thank you very much. Before she summarily dumped me for Mary Peterson and put me off women for the next twenty years."

"Not Jennifer, then. Bitch."

"Kate! Not in front of the miniature child. But no, not Jennifer."

There's quiet for a moment as they both sit and think.

"Flora?" Kate says.

"Flora? That's a margarine, isn't it?"

"Oh. Yes, I suppose so. I really like it though, it's feminine and pretty, it sounds like a flower, don't you think?"

"I'm not sure I approve of naming her something flowery. What if she wants to be an engineer?"

"Then she'll be one. Called Flora. Every name's going to have _something_ attached to it, somebody we once knew, someone famous, a foodstuff. We can't have a blank slate unless we make something up from scratch."

"Mum was terribly worried about Lawrence of Arabia."

"Was that a problem?"

"Kids these days have never heard of him."

"We really should have sorted this out by now."

"You were the one who wanted to wait and see what she looked like."

"I thought it would be easier, once we'd seen her face we could pick something that really suited her."

"There's a conversation to be had about middle names, too."

Kate raises her eyebrows, fixing her with a cool stare. "Yes. There is. I was wondering when you were going to be brave enough to bring that up."

"It's a long-standing family tradition." Caroline brushes a piece of imaginary fluff from her shirt, avoiding Kate's eyes.

"That you ignored completely with William and Lawrence."

"Only because the tradition comes from Mum's side of the family, not Dad's. Although I might have had something to say about a son called William Kenneth."

"Do you really expect me to name our daughter Flora Celia? After everything your Mum's said to me? And what about my Mum, she's the one who's actually pleased about this baby, who actually considers herself her grandmother."

"Flora Celia Ginika McKenzie-Dawson."

Silence.

"Caroline, I _love_ this child. That's cruel."

"Agreed. I'll tell my Mum that no-one's been called Celia for 50 years, she won't mind."

"Er...she might if you put it like that. Needs a bit more tact, sweetheart."

"I can be tactful. I am famous for my tact. She doesn't really _need_ a middle name, it's a good idea if you're calling your child John Smith but she's hardly going to turn up on the first day of school and be surrounded by Flora McKenzie-Dawsons."

"So are you happy with Flora? I really like it."

They both gaze down at their sleeping daughter.

"Hello Flora," Caroline whispers. The baby stirs a little in her sleep, one tiny arm moving back and forth.

"Did you see that?" Kate says. "It's definitely her name."

"Flora McKenzie-Dawson." Caroline reaches out and ever so gently strokes her sleeping head. "Welcome to the world, our little Flora."

* * *

"Gillian? Can I have a cuddle?"

"Caroline! You're a married woman!"

Caroline glares at her; Gillian grins.

"Calamity. May I please cuddle Calamity."

Gillian carefully hands her the sleeping baby and Caroline gazes at her, a soft smile on her face.

"I'd have thought you'd have had enough of babies by now, you've had three months of colic and nappies."

"Hardly," says Caroline, tracing a delicate line across Calamity's little forehead. "There are very few disadvantages to being married to Kate McKenzie but she loves Flora so much I can never get my hands on her. I have to wait until she's asleep and then mount a stealth operation to extract her from her mother's clutches."

"It's going well, though? You don't regret anything?"

Caroline looks up at her, confused. "Regret anything? Like what?"

"I didn't mean it like…don't take this the wrong way but you never seemed that keen on the baby idea, then you had that split with her…and when you got back with her you didn't have a choice in the matter, the deed was done."

She pauses for a moment, wanting to choose her words carefully.

"It wasn't an ideal situation, no. But frankly I've started to think I don't have a bloody clue when it comes to these things. If it had been up to me Kate and I would have never got together in the first place."

"What? Why? You worship the ground she walks on."

"I was very gunshy at the start. Very…afraid, I suppose."

"Of coming out the closet?"

"Yes, but not just that. Even without all that I don't think I would have chased after her if it had been left up to me. It wasn't love at first sight, it took me a while to realize how wonderful she was. I mean I always liked her, always thought she was…you know."

"Sexy."

A soft blush blooms on her cheeks. "I was going to say pretty," she says primly.

"For God's sake woman you're allowed to think your own wife's sexy. I think she's sexy."

"Sorry?!"

"I don't _find_ her sexy, I think objectively she's sexy. Like Madonna. Or Fiona Bruce."

"Quite an eclectic taste in women you've got there."

"So you would never have made a move on her? Bit pathetic there, Caz."

"It's not really…not in my comfort zone. Getting that close to someone. And she was so different from John-"

"I should hope so-"

"So gentle, so kind…I think maybe deep down I knew that if I let her get close we'd end up…here. All in."

"And you didn't want that?"

The baby stirs a little and she rocks her gently in her arms.

"I'm not sure I knew what I wanted. If it had been up to me though, if Kate hadn't pursued me, we never would have got together, that much I'm sure of. And then having another child was the last thing I wanted…honestly, I look back at it all and think that I didn't have a bloody clue what I was doing, I was blundering around like an elephant in a china shop. I'm clearly not fit to be in charge of my own emotional life and I should have let Kate make all those decisions. I would have missed out on my wife and daughter, on everything I've got now. What a twit."

"No arguments here. But you know, you kind of did let Kate make all the decisions, that's what I meant. You didn't have a choice about the baby, it was both of them or nothing, wasn't it?"

Caroline frowns; something about this conversation feels rather disloyal.

"Look, I'm sure both of us would do things differently if we had the time again. Kate's apologised for ever suggesting the, er, route that she ended up taking but she was running out of time and she'd had _four_ miscarriages, she'd spent years longing for a baby and didn't want to do it alone and suddenly with me she saw a chance that she felt she had to take or it would haunt her forever. And God knows if I could go back I wouldn't be buggering about with separate hotel rooms and all that bollocks. But I really didn't want a baby, I genuinely didn't want one. And now I'd do anything for that little girl, I wouldn't give her up for all the tea in China. That's the point, Gillian. I feel like I never really knew what I wanted. Maybe if I'd had a bit more emotional intelligence I would have realized that I was always going to fall in love with any child of Kate's as deeply as I fell in love with her."

There's quiet as Gillian absorbs her words, broken only by the intermittent gurgles of Calamity.

"Fiona Bruce?" says Caroline. "What on earth's that about?"

* * *

Holding back a sigh, Caroline looks away from the television to focus on her wife and daughter on the other side of the room. They're cuddled up together on the single armchair that Kate seems to have claimed as her own, foregoing the large sofa where she used to cuddle with Caroline. Flora's dozing quietly and Kate's watching her with her usual expression of adoration.

It should warm the very cockles of her heart but instead it makes her want to sigh. To pick a fight. To throw things.

She's going to have to say something. Surely there's a way to put this tactfully.

"You two look very cosy over there."

Kate doesn't look up but a small smile plays on her face.

"You could join me on the sofa, you know. Plenty of room."

"We're fine."

She still doesn't look up. Caroline's hackles rise a little further.

"You used to like it over here. Before."

Kate shoots her a puzzled glance but goes straight back to gazing at her daughter.

"Can I hold her for a while?" Caroline says.

"She's asleep."

"Yes I realize that. So?"

"I don't want to wake her up."

"You won't if you're gentle."

"She's perfectly happy."

Caroline turns back to the TV for a while, doing her best to fight back the irritation. But then Kate leans down and gently kisses Flora on the nose and she snaps, standing up and crossing the room in a flash.

"Right, hand her over."

Kate looks up, startled. "What?"

"Hand her over. Right now."

"Caroline…what are you-"

"Give her here. I mean it Kate, this is ridiculous! I know you love her but you never let me near her, I have to wait until you're asleep before I can hold her, sneak a quick kiss when you're on the phone, I've been cuddling her surreptitiously while you're in the loo for God's sake! I'm her mother too and I love her as much as you do and if you don't hand her over she's going to think I'm someone who occasionally wanders in off the street to change her nappy for some inexplicable reason. Hand her over."

Kate sits stunned for a few seconds but manages to recover enough to carefully get hold of Flora and hand her to Caroline. She takes her in her arms and sits down on the sofa to get comfortable.

There's a long silence. Flora's oblivious but there's a tension between the two women as Kate sits quietly and Caroline tries to work out whether she's gone too far. She sneaks a glance at Kate's face – she still looks a little stunned.

"You could join us. I'd like you to. I don't like it when you sit so far away."

After a few seconds of deliberation Kate walks over to sit beside them on the sofa.

"Much better. Sorry if I was a bit…you know. Abrupt."

"More than a bit."

"Yes. Sorry. But you have to admit you've been hogging her."

"I love her."

"Of course you do! But I love her too. You haven't let me near her."

"That's not true."

"Bloody well is."

There's another tense silence. She traces the lines of Flora's face, gently caressing her tiny features.

"It might be a _little_ true."

Caroline smiles at her gratefully. "I do understand, you know. You've fallen in love, doesn't take a genius to work that out. You just need to remember your old love as well. And the fact that your old love loves your new love."

"Of course I remember! I love you more than ever."

She stays quiet.

"Oh Caroline, have you been feeling…is this about you too?"

"It's not…it's not about me. Well maybe it's about me a bit. But we're a family, all of us, Kate, it's not you and your new daughter, it's all of us. And sometimes, well, a lot of the time it's felt like it's been just the two of you and that's not right. And she really is going to wonder who I am if I can't get my hands on her more, she'll think I'm the hired help. Or maybe the grandmother."

"Don't be daft, you're much too young to be the grandmother."

"I'm exactly the same age as Gillian. The grandmother."

Kate kisses her gently on the cheek. "Much too glamorous to be the grandmother, then. I will try to share her more, I do take your point. But I haven't forgotten you, I really haven't. You're the only reason I've got a family in the first place. I could never forget you."

She kisses her again; Caroline tries not to blush.

"Well. Good. As long as we understand each other."

* * *

"Caroline!"

Kate turns to her with a mixture of shock and indignation on her face.

"What? What?!"

"You just chopped my head off!"

"No I didn't!"

"Yes you did!"

"You did, Mum, look, I'll prove it to you."

Lawrence fiddles with the controller and Caroline watches in mild horror as one of the little characters on the television screen picks up a disembodied head and waves it around.

"That was the enemy!"

"That was _me_!"

"No it wasn't, you're the one that looks like a troll, the one with the big nose and mad hair."

"That's _me_ , Mum," says William.

"Are you sure?"

"Of course we're sure you plonker. You just beheaded your own healer."

"Oh. Well. Sorry about that."

"If you thought I was the bad guy why did you let me follow you around for the last two levels?"

"I…you…oh I don't bloody know, I was just trying to keep up with everyone, you kept charging off without me and then suddenly there were goblins all over the place and one thing led to another…can't we resurrect you somehow?"

"We could if we had a healer who still had her head on."

"Oh dear. I am sorry. So what now?"

"Nothing. I'm done for. Unless we start the whole thing again."

"I'm not sure I'm cut out for this. Why don't you keep playing as me and I'll sit at the back with Flora and play a game with slightly less horrifying violence, something that I can actually understand. Peekaboo, for instance."

* * *

"Caroline? I think she's had enough now."

"No, she loves it, look! She's hoovering it down!"

"Yes, she is, so don't you think she's had enough?"

Caroline gently steers another spoonful of mashed banana and mango into Flora's mouth and Kate watches as her daughter's face lights up with pleasure.

"You see, she loves this stuff, can't get enough of it. There are lots of other recipes in that book Gillian gave us, we'll have to try them, but this is definitely the biggest hit yet, she could eat this all day."

Another spoonful goes in, followed by another gurgle of pleasure.

"I'm sure she could. But she's not going to, is she? Because we're not going to let her?"

"Kate, I don't know what you're worrying about, she's the perfect weight for her age. Stop fussing."

Kate bristles at the dismissive tone.

"Fussing?" she says coldly.

Her wife turns around slowly, apparently aware that she's just crossed a line.

"I didn't mean…fussing, exactly…"

"What did you mean?"

"I meant…I meant she's happy and I'm happy and no-one's overweight so I don't think we should see problems where there aren't any."

"You don't think _I_ should see problems where there aren't any."

"Well…yes. Sort of. Do you want to give her a spoonful, she'll look at you as if you've hung the moon."

Kate tries unsuccessfully to suppress a smile. "Caroline. It's not about _me._ It's about her. What she needs, how much she's already eaten, how full up she is. It's not about making us feel good."

"I know that!"

"Do you? Sweetheart…you know, when we got back together I knew that you were going to be a wonderful mother. I knew that you were going to love this baby. I knew that you were going to protect her and guide her and do everything you could for her. And I knew that you were going to be strong with her, give her boundaries, tell her off if she did something wrong, because that's the kind of person you are, you don't let anyone get away with any nonsense. And now the moment you find something that makes her happy…we can't be the good cop and the bad cop, you and me. You can't be the one giving her third helpings of banana because you want to make her smile while I'm the wicked witch who only gives her half of that. That's not going to work, is it?"

Caroline looks thoroughly indignant. "That's not what I've been doing!"

"Isn't it?"

"No! Of course it isn't!"

"How many yoghurts did she have yesterday?"

"They're microscopic!"

"How many?"

"She had an appropriate amount for her age."

"And at least one more for you?"

"Kate-"

"How many rice cakes did she have at the weekend?"

"They're _rice cakes_! They're made of air and nothingness!"

"Did you give her more than I would have given her?"

"I don't even-"

"Did you?"

"Possibly, but-"

"How many carrot sticks did you give her at the park?"

"Oh a few billion, with several vats of puree on the side. Which will undoubtedly lead to a lifetime of obesity and type two diabetes, carrot sticks and vegetable puree being known for their astonishingly elevated fat content. What on _earth_ are you talking about?"

Kate walks over to her and takes her hand to try to soothe her. Flora watches them, patiently waiting for her next spoonful of banana.

"Caroline. Sweetheart. You're lovely. Honestly, you are. You love her very much and you've discovered a way to make her happy on demand and you're getting a bit carried away, that's all. But I need you recognize that, partly because it won't be long before she's wanting chocolate and ice cream and stuff that really _is_ bad for her. And partly because I'm relying on you to be the magnificent woman you always have been, because I'm soft on her too and I need to know that she has two parents who aren't afraid to say no to her and aren't going to spoil her so badly she grows up thinking that all she has to do is smile at us and she can have anything she wants, even if what she wants is seven helpings of chocolate cake. OK?"

Flora makes a quiet gurgling noise and they both look at her, Caroline's brow furrowed.

"I think she wants some more banana," Kate says.

"Yes."

"Are you going to give it to her?"

Caroline looks from her daughter to her wife and back again.

"She really loves this recipe."

"I know."

"Her whole face lights up."

"I know."

With a sigh Caroline picks up the bowl and scrapes the rest of the food into the bin.

"That's my girl."

"It's not going to be much fun when she does want chocolate cake."

"We'll manage it together. How did you cope when the boys were young?"

"Fear, mostly. With William I was scared of making a mistake and ruining him for life so I followed the books to the letter and that seemed to work so Lawrence got the same treatment. And when they were a bit older John was so pathetic I had to lay down the law or they would have run riot. Fear and a useless husband. She really does want some more banana."

Flora's started to fidget, her arms and legs pumping up and down.

"Maybe you could give her one more spoonful."

"It's in the bin! See, you're just as susceptible as I am."

"I know, that's the point! We're going to have to support each other otherwise we'll never manage it. If you can manage sort of semi-strict and I can manage semi-strict then between us we might constitute one whole strict parent."

"I found it a lot easier when the boys were older and started being naughty. At this age they're all angels but when they're deliberately breaking the rules it's much easier to tell them off."

"Excuse me. I think you'll find she's never going to be naughty."

Caroline grins at her. "No, no, course not, what was I thinking. She'll be the only toddler in history who does exactly what she's told."

"That's right."

Flora's little arms and legs continue to waggle around.

"Will you give me the recipe for that stuff?"

Caroline fixes her with a pointed stare.

"Tomorrow, I was going to make it tomorrow."

"Mm. I believe you. Millions wouldn't."

Flora makes a loud gurgling sound and looks as if she might start crying.

"Oh God," Kate says. "You'd better take her away from me or I'll be scraping it out of the bin."


End file.
